Mail, Mail, Go Away!

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." So proclaims the motto of the United States Postal Service.

If none of the above deter my intrepid mail carrier, I wonder if a vicious pit bull might. I've got to find some way to stop him. I’m desperate. Every day, except Sunday, he inundates my mail box with mountains of miscellany — bills, of course, plus solicitations from every imaginable charity and religious organization of every denomination, sales flyers from every store within a fifty-mile radius of my home, and mail order catalogs from companies based in states boasting purple mountain majesties or fruited plains, from sea to shining sea — and even from across those seas. (How did that cheese maker in Liechtenstein get my address? And who gave that tailor in Hong Kong my measurements?)

The bills I can understand. I don't like them, but they're my own fault. I keep squandering my hard-earned money on such foolish things as taxes, food, heat, and electricity — so it's no surprise that demands for payment show up regularly in my mailbox. But why do I have to put up with all that other stuff?

Consider the solicitations for donations, for example. Of course I want researchers to discover a cure for cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, leukemia, heart disease … Obviously I realize we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to our brave veterans. My heart breaks for all those starving, homeless and malady-stricken children. And I do love God and all the devoted missionaries who are sacrificing their very lives to spread His word. But give me a break! I can't help them all; and the few that I do try to support continually bombard me with thank-you letters that invariably conclude with appeals for even more money. And do any of these organizations really believe that they can guilt me into writing another check by sending me a nickel, a dime, greeting cards, note paper, and still more return-address labels to add to the hundreds they've sent previously?

As for those store flyers, I don't even glance through them. They go directly from my mailbox to the recycle bin. For this a rain forest in Brazil had to die?

And what's with all the mail order catalogs? I can't be positive, but I'm pretty sure it all started the day I was foolish enough to order a bathrobe online. My robe arrived in the mail a few days later, soon followed by catalogs from every clothing producer on the planet. And it mushroomed from there. Eventually I started receiving catalogs from manufacturers of gift items, household appliances, furniture, gourmet goodies, electronic gadgets and gizmos …

Apparently the company that sold me that bathrobe made a profit, not only on that sale, but also in the sale of my name as a likely prospect (spelled S-U-C-K-E-R) to commercial entities world-wide.

A while, back I discovered a website that promised to remove my name from lists of catalogs I do not want to receive. I faithfully reported the names of those companies repeatedly. It was an exercise in futility. If anything, my efforts seemed to generate even more unwelcome mailings.

I can think of one way to stop it all. Unfortunately, though, there probably are federal laws prohibiting setting fire to mailboxes — or mail delivery folk.